My #oneweek100people2020 prep is well and truly underway now as it’s only a few days until the challenge begins. I’ve started a new book – another Kunst and Papier sketchbook – and I’m filling up the first few spreads with doing some research on facial features and sketching what I find.

I chose this sketchbook because of its size and the the fact that the paper creates some nice watercolour effects without being too precious. I think that it’s important to have some user-friendly paper for this challenge, something that  encourages you to be free and just go for it. The Oneweek100people challenge is all about quantity so it’s good to use materials that make you feel comfortable.

I look at a lot of books on anatomy so I’m not going to make a definitive recommendation. However I do love looking at Lynne Chapman’s Sketching People book for inspiration and I find myself often coming back to Gary Faigin’s book: The Artist’s Complete Guide to Facial Expression. Some of these sketches are based on the images in his book. I particularly like the way he describes the features in terms of volumes and planes.

It’s important to look up more technical books, but I find it really good to look at how other sketchers draw and paint as well. Often the books are designed for carefully rendered larger works. but when we are sketching on location, our subjects are rarely close to us and so we sketch them much smaller. I like researching the features up close and then look at the different ways other artists scale and simplify them in their sketches. So looking at other people’s work will be part of my activities in the coming week as well.

Further reading:

• More about the challenge on Marc Taro Holmes’ site
• Oneweek100people Sydney sketchmeets

Are you ready for #oneweek100people2020 – are you doing any prep?